Great article from the Mother Nature Network.
To read the entire article click here.
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5 reasons not to drink bottled water
It's expensive, wasteful and — contrary to
popular belief — not any healthier for you than tap water.
Bottled water is healthy water — or so
marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water
ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy,
active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a
trip to the yoga studio.
In reality, bottled water is just water. That
fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place
worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with
the market expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent.
Bottled water is big business. But in terms of
sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It's costly, wasteful and
distracts from the brass ring of public health: the construction and
maintenance of safe municipal water systems.
Want some solid reasons to kick the bottled
water habit? We've rounded up five to get you started.
1) Bottled water isn't
a good value
Take, for instance, Pepsi's Aquafina or
Coca-Cola's Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be
purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks — and at the same price.
Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These
two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their
distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than 1 cent per gallon.
Now consider another widely sold liquid:
gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil,
shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to
your local filling station.
In the U.S., the average price per gallon is
hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price
of gasoline at a fraction over 2 cents an ounce.
And that's why there's no shortage of
companies that want to get into the business. In terms of price versus
production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame.
2) No healthier than
tap water
In theory, bottled water in the United States
falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In
practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale,
making it exempt from FDA oversight.
While public safety groups correctly point out
that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of
chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there's
very little empirical evidence that suggests bottled water is any cleaner or
better for you than its tap equivalent.
3) Bottled water means
garbage
Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons
of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water
Watch, that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per
year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high
quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are
simply thrown away.
That assumes empty bottles actually make it to
a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of
current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world's major oceans.
This represents a great risk to
marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for
food.
Thanks to its slow decay rate, the vast
majority of all plastics ever produced still exist — somewhere.
4) Bottled water means
less attention to public systems
Many people drink bottled water because they
don't like the taste of their local tap water, or because they question its
safety.
This is like running around with a slow leak
in your tire, topping it off every few days rather than taking it to be
patched. Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to
bottled sources. Once distanced from public systems, these consumers have
little incentive to support bond issues and other methods of upgrading
municipal water treatment.
5) The
corporatization of water
In the documentary film Thirst,
authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide
privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are
having on local economies.
Water is being called the "Blue
Gold" of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and
population, shifting climates and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming
humanity's most precious resource.
Multinational corporations are stepping in to
purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled
water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what
many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.
What can you do?
There's a simple alternative to bottled water:
buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don't like the way your local tap
water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparkling
fresh at a fraction of bottled water's cost.
Consider taking Food and Water Watch's No Bottled Water
Pledge. Conserve water wherever possible, and stay on top of local
water issues. Want to know more? Start with the Sierra Club's fact sheet on
bottled water.
Bottoms up!
